why did i lose?

WOW

I thought I played a lot! Now you're gonna make me go back and check out the total number of games I've played at Bet21.com! I seriously doubt it been more than 1096

 

You're an animal

WOW

I thought I played a lot! Now you're gonna make me go back and check out the total number of games I've played at Bet21.com! I seriously doubt it been more than 1096

 

Not such an animal really

That's 1096 tables of 10-round, heads-up play over a period of two months. I'd say an average table takes about three minutes to complete, so that comes out at < 1 hour per day. (Actually that still seems quite a lot, but it will have been bumped up by the novelty factor early-on, when I probably did play a few marathon sessions! )

 

17%

The 17% figure that joep quoted was for making the final table, not winning outright. And I think it was mainly for B&M MTT's rather than S&Gs.

Cheers

Reachy

 

Hah! Hourly rate may not have been the best phrase to express what I mean. It does conjure up an image of the keyboard smoking from all the frenzied activity. Maybe 'effective use of time' would be better. You've only got so much time to devote to playing; maximising the return on the money you stake, and maximising the actual amount you win need not be the same thing.

$10 + 0.1 ? I thought it was $10 + $1? (ie. 10%, not 1%)

Actually, my record is composed both of S&Gos and multi-table tournaments. It's a shame the system doesn't present the stats separately. I think my S&Go record has actually been quite poor, thanks to a couple of bad runs, but it's been more than compensated for in the multi-table events.

 

Ok that makes is clearer. This is something that the Mrs. has been harping on me lately - especially with the freerolls. Yesterday I was in 3. Two were fairly quick exits but one took 100 minutes only to get eliminated Round 4 on hand 25! She was exasperated! "Look at all the games you could have played (she saw me on an extraordinary lucky streak winning 3 in a row) instead of wasting two (2) hours for what? A chance to play in another tourney?"

She has a point! Diminished returns really

Interesting that you mention this because I'm going to break mine down into SNG vs. Tourney vs. Future freerolls. Should be interesting

 

Oops typo.

cheers

Reachy

 

A calco too I think.

 

brain fart!

Colin

You're right about the calco but my overall findings remain the same. Your transposed winnings would be $344 instead of $1330.40. Winning 23.6% of your 5 player games would give you $894 which is more than $500 better and winning 248 of them would give you the same profit as the 1&1s.

Cheers

Reachy

 

I concur

I don't know about the validity of the '1.6% above B/E' assumption, but taking that as a given, then I get the same numbers as you.

The reason I was being so pedantic is this whole 'hourly win rate' business. I reckon it would take about twice as long to play the same number of 5 player games, compared to heads-up.

With your first set of numbers it would have been way more profitable to use that extra time just to play twice as many heads-up games instead. But now we have:
2 * 344 = $688 versus $879 earned in the same period of time.

[Actually I just noticed my $879 figure isn't quite the same as your $894. And, having checked it and not rounded til the end, I now get 877.]

So 5 player looks to be more profitable, though it will be more of a roller-coaster ride in terms of variance. But tweak a few variables - maybe it takes 2.25 times as long to play, maybe the 1.6% needs to be reduced - and the figures may switch around.

 

6 of one or 1/2 dozen of another

I just used the 1.6% because that's how much greater than B/E your 56.6% win rate would be if it was based on 1&1s alone. There was no real maths involved, just a convenient number really .

Incidentally I am running an excel "simulation" at the moment. I'll let you know what it throws up later on.

Cheers

Reachy

 

London,

I went and re-read that thread you posted and it touched so very briefly on this subject.

The interesting thing is that Ken Smith stated that the advantage of a skilled BJ player at a single table was between 20-40%. Note that he didn't say one-one/heads up playing.

Also, while he did not mention it I am taking this as an implications, that percentage was over a player with no tourney experience.

Now if you and Reachy were to play heads up i.e., one-one, who has that 20-40% advantage? So does the percentage drop down to a random 50:50? I don't know?

Imagine that you, Reachy and some ploppie were at a table, say Hollywood Dan for example (nice guy just can't play BJ) - anyway - You and Reachy would have a 33.3% chance of winning PLUS and additional 20-40% OVER Hollywood Dan because he's never played tourney BJ.

That's why I feel the larger SNG tables have the better return on the buy in myself.

Note: not to be confused with the muther Hollywood Dave

 

I just re-read it too. I probably should let Ken speak for himself, but in the mean-time here's some wild speculation ....

The words 'average player' were used. Clearly no table will be composed of a set of equally [un]skilled opponents, but it makes sense to think of an average. Hopefully the presence of large numbers of very unskilled players drags that average down to a level below that of anyone who's read Wong.

I think you are confusing probability with expectation. (I also think that I may have done the same at various points in this thread. )

Re-reading Ken's comment, I think his 20-40% means that for every $1 you contribute to the prize pool, you expect to get back $1.20 to $1.40. That would presumably be independent of the number of players (although I still wonder if there might be subtle effects favouring smaller tables).

I think a 20% edge would imply a 60 : 40 split in probabilities, heads-up,
or a 24 : 19 : 19 : 19 : 19 split in probabilities, with four opponents.

But I could have got this completely wrong!

 

Player's Edge

I think Ken was saying that the expert player was 20% to 40% better than the average player in a tournament - S.Yama in a post a while back said by his rating system - he would consider an expert player one who was 30% to 50% better than an average player - this meaning that if you are playing a 5-person sit-n-go - the average player would expect to win 20% of the time - but the expert player would win 26% to 30% of the time - a small but consistent advantage - I think this was how Ken meant his percentages - this advantage would be multiplicative in a multi-table format - so if you had a 50% advantage for one table - your advantage over the average player would be 125% in a two table format - so if you needed to win two tables to reach a final table - with seven players at each table - the average player would do this once every 49 times - the expert would reach the finals once every 22 times

the key here is to track your performance over a very large number of tables - of the type you usually play - and compare your win/advance percentages to the 'raw odds' - this will let you calculate your advantage over the 'average' player in your tournaments - and you can then compare this to the house rake - if your advantage is 8% - you don't want to play a rake of 10% - you'll lose money - if your advantage is 20% - at a rake of 10% - you'll make money -

as you gain experience and skill - your advantage should increase -

 

Think I had it right

with seven players at a table - and having to win a qualifier table to get to the semi-final table - then win the semi-final to get to the final table - the average player wins 1 out of 7 (14.29%) - so 1 of seven to get from qualifier to semi - 1 of 7 to get from semi to final - so 1 of 49 to get to final table - then 1 of 7 to win final table - or - 1 of 343 to win the tourney -

the expert - with a fifty percent advantage - is 1 of 4.67 (21.44%) to win a table - so is 1 of 4.67 to advance from qualifier to semi - one of 21.81 to reach the final table - and 1 of 101.85 to win - three wins needed to win the tourney -

please tell me I'm right - 1 of 22 to reach the final table - then another 1 of 7 to win - because in this format I am 1 of 25 to the final table and 1 of 5 to win the final table - in my live tournament play - and I want to be a mediocre expert:laugh:

 

3 rounds

RKuczek,

You have a good understanding of Ken Smith's statement. I thought there was an error because I mis-interpreted your post to mean just a 2 round tournament. With 3 rounds, your calculations look OK, although I did not verify the arithmetic. Sorry about that.

PS: I deleted my post where I thought there was a possible error to avoid confusion.

PS2: It just occurred to me that the "expert" advantage percentage (you were using 50% in your example) is valid only if all the competitors are at the same level on competence. In actual tournament play, a larger percentage of the less competent are eliminated than the percentage of better players eliminated as the rounds progress. So as each successive round is played, the quality of play gets better and the 50% advantage that the expert enjoyed on the first round, no longer applies to the later rounds. The expert probably still has an advantage but that advantage diminishes as the rounds progress. Seems to me that maybe the "percentage" should be reduced by about 50% for each successive round. So in a 3 round tournament, per your example, the advantage percentages might be: 1st round = 50%, 2nd round = 25%, Final round = 12 1/2%. This may explain why it's so damn hard to win these damn things. Food for thought.

 

not as much loss

as you would think - I think - S.Yama said it would be slight - when he posted his rating system a few months ago - as he figured it - there is so much luck in tournaments - that a lot of very bad players advance - and a lot of average players get lucky - and a lot of good - and mediocre - players lose - look at Ken's record he posted the other day - so I think there is some loss of advantage - but nowhere near 50% of it - I have played in semi-final rounds - and even at a final table - where a player brought a basic strategy card to the table - and referred to it before playing every hand - probably not an experienced player

maybe lose 10% of advantage? - each round you advance? - so 50% drops to 45% - then to 40.5%????

 

scanning

I've just scanned the more recent posts and just thought I'd jump in a remind you all that joep's record is a 17% final table rate. That's 1 in 6 (well 5.88 to be precise). I'll read the posts in more detail later to see if I can add anything more.

Cheers

Reachy

 

Reachy, are you stirrin' some trouble? Naughty, naughty!

 

Not intentionally

Not stirring, and like I said I haven't read the posts in detail. I will try and find joeps post where he talked about final table rate to make sure I got my information correct.

Cheers

Reachy